Power Cords Snake Oil ??


Having been a long time audiophile living with countless high end compnents I have to wonder about the theory and practicality of high end power cords.

I have yet to hear the difference a power cord makes. Ive owned, synergistic, Shunyata, BMI and cardas. I in no way can detect any sonic signature or change. Give me a pair of interconnects and I imeadiately notice a difference somewhere in the sonic spectrum. Not the PC though. I have accomplished 4 blind tests with my friends. 3 out of the 4 they did not know their cord was replaced. All 4 were using a stock factory supplied cord. Each of the 4 tests were done on different components. Amp, CDP, Preamp & dac.

My electrical backround tells me that provided you supply the component with its required voltage bet 110vac or 220/240vac its happy. Now, change the incoming frequency from 60hz to say 53hz and watch how quickly your soundstage collapses.! This is often the case during the summer months when home air conditioners are in use and the utility company power output is taxed to the max. A really good power conditioner should however take care of the frequency fluctuations. But 110vac is still 110vac regardless of the conductor it passes through as long as its remains 110vac when it reaches the intended circuit. Does your 8k amp or preamp know the difference of the path the voltage took to reach it ? Many an audiophile will use a dedicated 20amp circut for their equipment.That is a good idea as voltage & frequency fluctuations will occur in the home circuit to to other loads on the main breaker panel but again, A power cord simply is the means of transporting the voltage from the wall to the component. IF there is a clean 110vac @ 60hz at the wall socket, no matter what the medium is to go from the socket to the component, it will still be 110vac @60hz.

Could somebody expand on this a bit more. I just dont understand it. ??
jetmek

Showing 10 responses by flex

Audioengr, have you done a control experiment where you take your amp and dac to a city environment with really dirty power, fluctuating voltage, and rfi. Does the power cord independence hold for these conditions? Your result sounds like a very good first step in separating out the elements of the power cleanup issue.
Corona, your response is pure crap. You log onto a consumer website and claim a lot of preposterous physics - superconductors, string theory (what's next - astrophysics?) There is only one way, and there never will be any other way, to do physics theory, and that is by publication and peer review - put your results where other people can test them. Listening proves *absolutely nothing* about physics, except that you can be *hugely* misinterpreting your results.

Claiming a lot of unpublished, hidden, unscrutinizable, grandiose garp serves to take the audio field down in the eyes of every respectable audio scientist. It may serve your marketing purposes which seem to be just to get your name out there. If you want to advertize your power cords for what they are, do so, but leave physics out of it until/unless you offer proof.

"..slam a product without any understanding of the technology involved".. What technology have you offered? String theory? Superconductors? The word 'resonance' is not a technology.
So lets take one of Corona's cords and check it out on Audioengr's modified amp and dac. If no audible change, what happens in string theory?
My point above is not at all combative.

It would be a real accomplishment in this high end field if a testbed created by one designer could become useful to other designers working on ideas - even radical ideas. It might even end the snake oil era, perish the thought.
Zaikesman, no I wasn't expecting a unification of all cable design based on string theory (aargh). Why is email so difficult?

The point of testbeds is that they can prove and DISPROVE ideas, and they lead in theory to an exchange of ideas. This is the way it would be done if high end ever entered the realm of science/engineering (!) (Maybe we could progress from a proliferation of diy/artisan cable designers and on to something like power supply redesign, for example.) Nah, its more fun to buy $2500 cables.

The issue here isn't string theory, by the way. It is resonance, and how much resonance has to do with cable response. I have my own strong opinions, and so do both Audioengr and Corona, but those two have data and I don't. That is where a testbed fits in.
>Corona says:
“If it tests good and sounds bad it’s bad"

In other words, you didn't know how to test what you were hearing

>Corona says:
"if it tests bad and sounds good it’s good.”

In other words, you didn't know how to test what you were hearing

>Corona says:
"The truth is if we won the Nobel Prize for Physics you would then be saying: “Physics theory has nothing to do with great sound”. "

If you won the Nobel Prize, you would have gone through exactly the process I outlined. You would have published your work and proved to the satisfaction of others the correlations between sound and physical phenomena.

Obviously there are engineering, physics, and psychoacoustic phenomena behind what we hear. However demonstrating that something sounds one way or another is no proof of underlying physics. Like the majority of pc makers, you can sell your products based on sound, but if you are going to claim physical reasons that stand on any merit, you are going to have to provide evidence. Handwaving at theoretical physics is specious logic.

On white papers, there are about 80 years of work in audio that is firmly grounded in published measurement and engineering theory.
Look at the mess it has created.... like acoustics, speaker design, electronics, digital processing, recording, microphone design, networks, midi. I think I'll stay lost in the past if that's true.

A forum for the discussion of ideas. String theory, superconductors... on Audiogon ??

Corona, no one seriously expects you to offer scientific proof, least of all here. Reread Zaikesman's posts if you need to grasp the issue. Discussion, real discussion, is fine.
A more important question to push the boundaries on is why various components are immune to the colorations of power cords. That goes back to the question of power supply and transformer design raised earlier.
I think... still think.. one of the most important non-Corona-related points on this thread is as follows:

Most systems respond to power cords, often far too much so -

The original poster of this thread, long forgotten, stated that power cords did not produce audible differences in his system.

Audioengr stated that from his experience, correct design or modification of power supplies greatly reduces power cord colorations.

If mods of this sort can be demonstrated and quantized, it should lead to next generation equipment with less performance variability. The best way to defeat the need for expensive cables is to define conditions where they become unnecessary.

Any alternative thoughts on this?